Since its inception in 1992, the National University (NU) has been struggling to provide quality education and has largely failed to supervise as many as 2000 colleges and institutes across the country with more than a million students.
Moreover in its 21-year journey, it has given birth to many controversies over a string of debatable decisions. The recent controversy has been raised by giving promotions to students, who had failed in five subjects in the first year honours examinations, against an uproar from educationists saying it will lead to low quality graduates.
Approximately, 60-70% of the total graduates of the country come through the NU, and its failure to breed better graduates have been putting a negative impact on the total education system. Since most of the students who enrol into colleges of NU, belong to low and mid-income families.
University Grants Commission (UGC) in several of its annual reports, expressed concern over the low quality of education provided in many colleges under the NU, holding it responsible for the overall low standard of education in the country.
Students cannot complete the four-year honours course before six to seven years. A prolonged session jam is prevalent in almost all the courses. On several occasions, students have taken to streets to demand an end to the session jam, without any result. Students even went on a hunger strike and only stopped on the Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid's promise of taking proper steps to end the session jam, the trend however continues.
Interestingly, the university was actually created to save students from the session jam. Before the creation of NU, colleges were run under public universities.
Students said due to the prolonged session jam, they could not apply to government jobs on time. "Large number of National University students are unemployed and this is due to the session jam," said Ibrahim Hossain, an honours third year student of the National University.
He said being a National University student was the worst thing as its graduates were largely overlooked by everyone for its low quality education.
"The students also suffer a lot because of the session jam and the NU authority has a lot to do if they want to solve the crisis," said S M Mokfur Hossain, principal of the Government Bangla College while talking to the Dhaka Tribune.
When asked about irregular classes, he said they were trying to make sure that classes were held on regular basis but admitted that due to shortage of teachers and some other reasons it was not always possible.
In 2009, the government formed a high-powered committee to formulate recommendations on the NU. It pointed out that the high number of colleges is a major constraint for NU, which is struggling not only to supervise them but also to maintain a standard in terms of education. The committee suggested decentralising the university. However, most of the recommendations have not been implemented in the last five years.
Former chairman of UGC Nazrul Islam, who headed the committee believes that the recommendations should be implemented immediately.
"A large number of colleges are under the NU. It is not possible to fully monitor the large number of colleges and as a result quality is being hampered. We suggested full decentralisation of the university." he said, adding the decision to promote the failed students would hamper the quality of education.
"The authorities concerned should seriously think about the NU as this impacts the total education system," Nazrul Islam said.
Meanwhile, National University Pro-VC Munaz Ahmed Noor told the Dhaka Tribune that they were trying to implement the recommendations.
